Ted Max

Why do I feel like someone's given me a tenner and then taken a twenty out my back pocket at the same time? I suppose all products can only be the result of process and method. Not sure there is a dislocation between the two. But I think your line about a belief in fair play and rationalism rings true - and where that takes us. Was Prima Notte solved amicably, then? And have you just watched Braveheart again recently?

Nope, not a clue. I fear the fever runs rabid, captain. Bring me my leeches and my hot cups.

You have a wonderful, grandiose style Hugu. Like a well-coached Oxbridge entrance exam, mixed with a dose of eyeballs-to-the-sky preacherman. I don't know what it all means, but it stirs me somewhere. (no, not there)

I learnt that Americans will take conference calls at stupid times. Often in their jim-jams whilst eating their Golden Grahams, rather than be seen to be unavailable. And, loosely related to the coffee machine updates, there was a sign at my old office that used to say: "The taps downstairs are drinking water"

I have no problems with Scotland being labelled as British. It de facto is, just as you have described, within Britain. But to deny a Scottish culture as distinct from that wider British identity seems perverse. My point about language above, by the way, was in response to Brendan's wondering why Scots became the dominant language in the country - not an attempt to define modern Scotland. And we are more likely to cling to each other when the economics don't look so good. It's what brought us together, after all.

I think you are arguing against some things I haven't proposed. Nor do I think the positions you assign to me are a logical progression of my arguements. To talk of Scottish culture in the way you do, you have to generate a false image of a Scottish race No you don't. Who mentioned a Scottish race? If you try and define Scottish culture as the attitudes and approaches of only the genetically pure then you're back on the biscuit tin again. Who does that? If Edinburgh is English by design, and architecture contributes to cultural texture, then Scottish culture is English. It doesn't matter whether you like it or not, whether it was elected or imposed, it just is. Yes, a specific and small part of Edinburgh was designed-in as English (actually European, but let's say English). Aspects of Scottish culture are of course influenced by English culture. I wouldn't seek to deny that and don't have any kind of a problem with it. It doesn't make it "English" though. I can't believe you don't have the imagination to see that. Let's give a word, here.

Strides = imposed symbols of a cultural-normative political elite. I refuse to wear them. I'm not wearing any right now.

I don't know. We might ask those trouser-wearing nations what was with the trouser thing? Most of the world wore skirts, no?

You shoot down my frivolous generalisation without mercy. Battleships.

Brendan Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Ted Max Wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > ----- > Facetiousness aside it is interesting that Old > Scots, a Germanic language coming from the same > Germanic/Scandinavian roots as Old English, is > more influential historically and culturally than > any Celtic languages are in Scotland. Scots Gaelic > is more of an Irish import than an endemic > language.* I?m not saying that the Scots and > English are the same just that they are different > in a different way to the way say the Welsh and > the English are different. > > *I'm not saying that there haven't been celtic (or > other) languages endemic to Scotland thought out > history. That is all true (apart from the Irish import thing, although I accept your qualification). But if you see Scotland as a nation state arising from a Pict/ Gael/ Lallans mish-mash, the military and economic victories came from those in the Lowland power base. Hence Old Scots wins. It doesn't make Scots more "British" though. Britain as a concept didn't exist at the time.

Tony, red hair = Viking invaders. Very successful genetically in Scotland, Ireland and North East England. Celts = dark haired wiry types. Often found playing open-side flanker in 1970s Welsh rugby teams.

I'm offering that these signifiers are just as strong twixt Luton, Newcastle and Chelsea as they are between Scotland and England. Then we will have to disagree. In order to differentiate culture nationally then you need cultural differences that are greater on either side of the border than they are within those borders. See my language post - which address language, by the way, not merely accent. Or even dialect. Let's take the Bath/ Edinburgh example on as well. You refer of course to the simlarity between the Georgian neo-classical architecture of the two Cities. Yet the New Town of Edinburgh was built 1. To place Scotland within the neo-classical Enlightenment that was a European-wide feature and 2. As a statement of political and economic power of an elite that had profited from a Hanoverian military victory in the '45, and was now safe to cross the Nor Loch and build outside the Old Town defences. In other words, if it looks homogeneously "British" - it's because it was damn well supposed to.

Well, you make a subtle point there. But I would argue that English as spoken by most Scots people reflects a divergence in the path of the language in both countries from a common base (Old English). Scots was a sort of atrophied Old English, while English moved on into middle and then modern English. Of course in Scotland, people speak modern English, but they do so marked in a specifically Scots way, and they do this naturally, and as a result of a specific "cultural logic". Not merely to be and appear different.

I don't know where to start with that Huguenot. Of course there are similarities between cultures that have now been joined legislatively for 300 years, and have shared a monarch for 400. And of course, in response to that union, the anyone-but-England theme runs deep, as does the shortbread tin "put a kilt on it and call it Scottish" motif. But this Hence I was marginalising and belittling their independent cultural logic on the grounds that it makes no more sense than a bloke saying "I'm not English, I'm a Ripon man". is surprisingly short-sighted of you. So what are these signifiers of an "independent cultural logic" that were once and still are uniquely Scottish, and that are not purely about being "not English"? Language, religion, music, architecture, trade, art, all the biggies. Some of these, yes, have interacted with a greater British identity. How could they not? But they have not been so subsumed that you can no longer make a distinction between Engand, a region of England, and a separate country. Have they?

Best bit about Georgia's v helpful link was the follow up: show how you now manage this weakness. ie I used to be have massive tantrums in the middle of the office but I've learnt that if I recognise the symptoms in time, I can run to the loos and cry in there instead.

My biggest weakness is I don't know my own weaknesses. Coat. Door. Slightly unsatisfactory call to recruitment agent.

Is it for a filing job, Strawbs?

Well done, Will - good post. If you can bear to read the rest of this thread (and I wouldn't blame you if you couldn't), you'll see the original poster didn't get very far. And they were only asking (so nicely, as well) anyway. And now they have their answer. PS Declaration of interest: I once had a couple of pints in The Palmerston. It was nice.

This is a very stupid post from a very intelligent contributor. I'm going to put it down to a touch of malarial fever. Have more tonic with the gin, old chap. Man of straw. Puff puff.

You tickles 'em under 'ere, see, and they just comes out the water noice and easy. http://www.alaskabestfishing.com/media/freshwater-fly-fishing-b06.jpg

What a very British post, Felicity.

Get in Brendan, a CPT - Police Sipping Lattes plot tie-up. Good thinking.

Look at them sitting around, sipping their Lar-tays that they didn't even know existed until a few years ago. Screwing free drinks out of the staff, who will have to make up the money themselves, because they know we know they're never legal. Scum. And I try to pay for mine and the staff look at me like I'm the sad case. Chloe's Mum is coming down for the weekend and we've booked Franklins. Chloe's paying. She says she doesn't mind, but I do. And she'll be asking what cases I'm on, if I've got that Mandelson chappie in my sights yet, and have we impeached Blair? And I will have to smile, because I can hardly say, "No, actually, I spent five hours on Friday at the local school discussing a six year old boy who comes in every day smelling of urine and worse, because his mum's never at home and he and his two brothers are being looked after by their 12 year old sister. One of his brothers has reported an uncle who hits them, so I sit in as part of the case panel. In the end, we do nothing, although we will offer support to the mum. The head teacher told me not to worry, that he thought he could work with the mum, who was just over-stretched. But I do worry. And I feel there's nothing I can do even if I wanted to. No, I could hardly say all that over the Oxtail and Dauphinoise. Oh do shut up Rog, you ignorant, lazy, stick of piss.

"So Shereen's got me knob in her hand right, looking at it like it's the microphone at a karaoke night she don't wanna be at. And I'm like ... sorry love, you'll have to park over there, we need the space for the van. Fack me... "and I'm like, you get what you're given, love, you get what you're given. And she's got a fackin bod-on like you wouldn't believe, cos I'm supposed to be over her mum's helping paint the new extension. Are you married kid? Yeah, you look the type. Well never agree to do DIY for your in-laws if you can't cash that cheque. Sex strike for a month. Like melons they were, by the end of it. I could hardly sit down. "Remember that bird we brought in on the domestic last week. Definite would, and she was up for it. But I'm a changed man these days. Leave all that malarkey to the kids. Have a crack at that, SonnyBoy, would you? You could put her through college, yeah? So Shereen, yeah, she's got me on this diet. Told me I was getting fat. You try doing this job these days I told her. It's all sitting round with your thumb up your arse. I've only got to look at a bakery and I put pounds on these days. You got it all coming, kiddo, got it all coming."

Shut up, shut up, shut up. It never stops. I see the shoppers come in. See them see us with our radios going off - and why aren't we answering them? See them see us with our half-litre pots of coffee, feet up on the seats. And Rog just going on and on about his stupid wedding and his children: Christelle, Chantelle, whatever. And me sitting here wondering what Chloe's up to. If she's told her work friends yet that I'm a copper. And what they'd make of it. And Rog here just leching on all the mums shopping, like they won't even notice, like he cares if they do notice. And this is the good bit of the job. Jesus.